Reliance Communications is upgrading R World to deliver mobile internet and data services to its 3G subscribers. R World has been developed by Motricity, a backend provider of mobile internet services.
Motricity has also created web solutions for some of the world’s largest mobile operators including AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Celcom and XL Axiata.
R World will provide RCom subscribers with personalised access to high speed mobile internet with download speeds of up to 21 Mbps, high definition mobile TV and other features across a range of mobile devices, thus enabling mobile content discovery, mobile commerce, mobile social networking, and mobile marketing campaigns and programs.
New features on R World will include access to multiple email clients, RSS feeds and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter from a single App on the mobile device.
Reliance Communications upgrades R World for 3G
Google Doodle now on smartphones
Google has announced that its popular Doodles will soon be available on phones running Android 2.0 and above, and on iPhones with at least iOS 3.0.
Google put up its first Doodle in 1998 when the search company’s founders wanted to show that they were at the Burning Man festival, held in the Nevada desert in celebration of the arts. A few Google Doodles in the past have featured on mobiles and the first such was for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Google also started a Doodle designing contest in India a few years back. The Doodle 4 Google contest invites school children to design the Google logo based on different themes.
This year’s winner was Akshay Raj of St. Aloysius High School in Mangalore.
88 per cent of adolescents own mobile phone in India
Over 65 per cent of high school students in India carry a mobile handset while going schools, attending classes and tuition session, states a survey by industry body ASSOCHAM.
The survey, “Toy to Tool”, further found that 88 per cent of adolescents aged between 15 and 18 year possess mobile phone with ownership basis while 40per cent of teenagers aged 13-15 now also use cell phones.
D S Rawat, secretary general, ASSOCHAM said, “Despite school strictures and policies, the ground reality is that more than two-thirds of teens confess that they are using cell phones in school premises when they shouldn’t.”
The survey was conducted during September-November 2010 with random sample of 2000 parents and 2,500 students in around 25 schools in the country.
Around 71 per cent of teens desires their handsets to be equipped with MP3 players while70 per cent prefer camera phones.
Features most accessed on a device are emailing, reading books, listening to music and surfing the net along with chatting.
Lava launches its first touch screen handset A10
LAVA Mobile has announced the launch of a new device, A 10, which comes with the latest IPS screen. It is also the first touchscreen phone in the company’s portfolio and the second to be launched under its A series, first being the A9.
An IPS screen provides a superior display with clear and sharp images both for still and motion pictures. Besides the superior display, IPS Screen allows pictures and videos to be viewed at wide angle till 178 degree. The wide viewing angle is particularly useful when a group of people are viewing the same screen from different angles.
The A10 is a complete touch screen TFT phone with the dual SIM feature. The 3 inch screen comes with multi touch support.
Multimedia features include 3.2 Megapixel camera with flash and Yamaha PA System for good audio quality. The phone also supports expandable memory support up to 16 GB.
On the applications front, social networking apps like Facebook, Twitter come pre loaded along with other applications like maps by Map My India etc.
A 10 is also equipped with a Gravity Sensor to enhance the gaming experience.
PlayStation phone to be released on December 9
The blogosphere is abuzz with rumours of Sony Ericsson’s PlayStation phone being launched as early as December 9. The device will be a combination of the PlayStation gaming console and a Sony Ericsson phone.
Sony Ericsson will host an event on December 9, which the company calls its ‘most anticipated presentation of the last ten years’. The invitation to this event features images of a phone and the familiar PlayStation buttons, which is likely indication that the company will launch its PlayStation phone at the event.
The device is expected to feature a 4.1 inch touchscreen, 1 GHz processor, an 8 mega Pixel camera, 512 MB of RAM, and 1 GB of ROM. It’s suggested that the phone will run Android 2.3.
Recently, a Greek gadgets blog Techblog.gr featured a blurry video of the PSP phone. According to this blog, the handset is codenamed Zeus and will be called Sony Ericsson Z1 when it arrives.
Leaked pictures of the phone also surfaced on Engadget. The device is expected to be priced at around $500 (or approximately Rs 23,000) and will come with five free games. It’s unclear when the phone will come to India but if history is any indication, it’ll be here pretty soon.
PRESS INVITE
MTS expand services to Gujarat
MTS, the mobile telephony services brand of Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd (SSTL), has announced the launch of its mobile telephony services in Gujarat. The launch extends the company footprint to 13 telecom circles.
The voice calls are priced ½ paisa per second, similar to what MTS offers in other operating circles.
Navid Rashid, chief operating officer, Gujarat said, “In-addition to an unmatched tariff, our focus is also to provide a world class customer care service and add more value-for-money for customer through innovative products like Recharge Booster, where we give 25per cent extra Talk time with every subsequent recharge for a year. “
Additionally MTS has introduced a new concept of ‘Timeage’.
Explaing the concept a company statement said, “It is the actual extended value derived from an MTS mobile, expressed as a function of time. For e.g. a recharge of Rs 100 done by an MTS mobile user would last for 67 days as compared to just 32 days being offered by any other operator (under standard talking conditions – 4.1 minutes a day).”
The telecom operator is also planning to invest Rs 100 Crore in Gujarat. The funds will be utilised in building the service network across the circle. MTS aims to build a network of over 150 dealers and 31,000 retail outlets across the state, in the next 3 months.
Tata Indicom offers free talktime up to Rs one lakh
Tata Indicom, the CDMA brand of Tata Teleservices, has introduced a handset upgrade offer for its prepaid subscribers in Andhra Pradesh.
Under the offer, a subscriber can avail a free Talk time up to Rs one lakh on the purchase of any CDMA handset by SMSing OFFER to 12524 from the new handset, within seven days of purchase.
The assured talk time is Rs 50 and the customer can get talk time up to Rs 1 lakh, which will be credited to the user’s account within a period of seven days.
The spokesperson for the company said, “The value of talktime received will depend on the kind of usage of existing subscribers.”
He further said, “We will be calculating average spend by the subscribers over the last three months and then fix slabs according to which our subscribers will be getting free talktime. Anyone who has a usage of more than the average will get a talktime of Rs one lakh.”
The offer is available to all Tata Indicom prepaid subscribers till December 19, 2010, and will be applicable on all new CDMA handsets purchased in the state irrespective of the place from where it is brought by subscriber.
Tata Indicom launched mobile operations in January 2005 and now it is present in all of India’s 22 telecom circles. Its network has been rated as the least congested in India for six consecutive quarters by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Micromax A60 hits the Indian market
Micromax is the latest handset manufacturer to join the Android handset bandwagon with the launch of A 60.
The device, A 60, runs on Android 2.1 (Eclair) and is powered by a 600Mhz processor. Although an update to the Android 2.1 is now available, the company can be excused for not using the same, given the price of the device. On the other hand, we think the device should perform well with the 600Mhz processor.
With a price tag Rs 6,999, the Micromax A 60 is one of the most affordable Android handsets available in the market.
The phone sports a 7.1 cm touch display with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels and 65K color display. The touchscreen is a resistive one hence it senses input from contact with nearly any object (finger, stylus/pen etc.). We would have welcomed a higher resolution display.
As far as multimedia features are concerned, A 60 comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera and the music player supports almost all popular file formats namely AMR-WB, WAV, MP3.
Other features include Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, Proximity Sensor, Accelerometer and expandable memory up to 32 GB.
Proximity sensor is a welcome feature and a must of every touchscreen device. It is able to detect the presence of nearby objects without any physical contact and switches off the display of the phone as soon as you get it near your ear during a call. Hence, saving you from pressing any in-call option unintentionally.
On the other hand, an accelerometer measures motion of the phone and changes the screen orientation from portrait to landscape according.
The company plans to launch another handset running on the Android platform by January.
Techcom India forays into mobile handset market
Consumer electronics manufacturer Techcom India has launched seven new mobile phones for Indian consumers.
The company’s handsets launched are in the price range of Rs 1,500-4,000.
“Techcom will sell phones in the range of Rs 1,500-4,000 currently. With pan-India presence of our offices and distributors, we hope to penetrate the Indian mobile market extensively in the next six months,” Techcom Director-Mobile Phone Division Sandeep Kedia told reporters here.
All the seven handsets launched are dual SIM (GSM+GSM) models.
Tata Docomo 3G Life
Tata Docomo, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices, started rolling out 3G early last month and is the first private operator in the country to do so.
The circles in which it offers 3G services include Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh-Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, UP (West), Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra.
Here is a look at the 3G services that Tata Docomo currently offers:
Mobile TV – It is live TV on mobile screen that can be recorded and paused. Video from here can also be posted to social networks, and it’s possible to browse the program guide and set reminders.
Let’s Play – A portal for online and downloadable, single and multiplayer games. It’s like a social network for gamers so users can share their scores with their friends.
Catch Up– One interface for accessing multiple email accounts, social networks and instant messengers.
Video Calling – This service allows subscribers to do video conferencing while making voice calls.
Video SMS and mail – Allows users to add 30 second videos to text SMSs, and send video emails.
The picture or video SMS is delivered instantly, unlike traditional MMS messages; while video mail is like voice messaging, but with video instead of voice.
On Demand Services – This service lets users watch and download videos on the phone along with news, weather and mobile premiers and movies made exclusively for mobiles. It also has music for download.
Market – an App store that contains thousands of applications across categories such as music, books, movies, travel and business.
Docomics – a comic viewer application that has popular comics such as Spiderman, X-Men, Japanese Manga etc.
Prayer – Live darshan videos from famous shrines. One can also watch live aarti and sing along with karaoke aartis.
Fortune – This lets subscribers get live advice from astrologers on the basis of sun sign.
Tata Docomo 3G users can also watch 10 hours of live cricket during the India-New Zealand one-day series free of cost. To continue viewing matches after the ten free hours are up, or on December 11 (whichever is earlier), users will have to be subscribe to a weekly plan for Rs 30.
This offer can be availed on any one-day game on December 1, 4, 7 and 10. It is invalid after December 10.